April Meal Prep Preview!

Get A.M.P.ed for April Meal Prep!

So tomorrow I should be uploading my first week of April Meal Prep content! The video will be longer than usual, and in a little different format than my typical video. I’m aiming for about a half-hour video to cover my recipes and techniques, plus to show how I utilize my prepped meals in daily life. So before we get into practice, let’s talk about theory.

Firstly, I get lunch at work. I work as a prep cook in the cafeteria for the St. Lucie Mets. So usually I pull some sliced meats, cheese, and some lettuce of the deli and salad bars, fix a cup of tea, and finish up with some fruit and vanilla yogurt. All I have to worry about with meal prep is a quick breakfast and having something ready for dinner so I don’t have to cook after work.

Also, I’ve never meal prepped before. So I did some research, and I’m going to dump all the links I used to figure out my plan of attack.

Meal Prep Haven-Meal Prep for Beginners
http://www.mealprephaven.com/blog-1/2015/9/21/meal-prepping-101-for-beginners

Beachbody On Demand-Meal Prep Tips: A Beginner’s Guide to Meal Prepping
https://www.beachbodyondemand.com/blog/meal-prep-101-a-beginners-guide-to-meal-prep

Thirty Handmade Days-Meal Prep Ideas-Why, What, and How
https://www.thirtyhandmadedays.com/100-meal-prep-ideas/

My Meal Prep Sunday-Beginners Meal Prep Guide
https://mymealprepsunday.com/155-2/

Meal Prep On Fleek™-Meal Prep 101 for Beginners
https://mealpreponfleek.com/meal-prep-101-for-beginners/

Mealprep Society-How to Meal Prep: A 5-Step Beginner’s Guide to get you started
http://mealprepsociety.com/guides/how-to-meal-prep-beginners-guide

Across the board, each resource contained a very similar set of must-do’s to get started with preparing meals ahead of time for the week. I’m going to go over their recommendations and describe how I’m going to adhere to each step (or why I’m going to ignore that recommendation).

Write down your goals-Okay, this one’s easy enough: I want food to be ready when I get home from work instead of having to cook.
Plan your meals-Again, this task isn’t too involved. I need two entrees for the week for dinner, plus four side dishes to keep in rotation through the week, and something snack-sized for breakfast. I’m not big on breakfast, though. I’d personally rather sleep an extra ten minutes than eat breakfast. I love having breakfast for dinner sometimes, though.
Get some meal prep containers-No. This tip is generally tied in to portion control and hitting macros, and that’s not my goal. What I will do is make something like a quiche and pre-slice it so all I have to do is pull out a serving, put it on a plate, and pop it in the microwave. My goal is to not have to cook on work days. If you are meal prepping for fitness, then please, feel free to buy containers.
Pick a day or days to prepare your meals-I’m probably going with Tuesdays. If I publish the previous week’s content on Monday, I can clear my SD card and charge my camera and be ready to record another week’s worth of content starting with Tuesday prep. Most people do Sundays, and sometimes again on Wednesdays. Figure out what works for you and make a schedule.
Plan your grocery list based on your meals for the week-For this I’m going to work on my list and my menu at the same time. That way, if I have to buy green peppers for one recipe, I can figure out another recipe that would also use green peppers, so I can have more crossover and buy fewer ingredients. And with something like green peppers, I can pick from different flavor profiles like Mexican, East Asian, or Cajun, so I won’t get bored having that ingredient in multiple dishes.
Use the tools in your kitchen effectively, like the oven and Crockpot-I do think I want to make a few meals where I can throw it together in a bag on prep day, and a few days later dump it into a slow cooker in the morning to have dinner ready when I get home. My resources also recommended using the space in the oven for roasting so the stovetop would be free to brown meat or cook rice, but I’m prepping for two people over six days. I don’t think it’ll be too much effort on my part to just make a couple dishes where we can rotate leftovers over the course of a week.
Utilize raw foods to reduce the amount of cooking you have to do-Things like celery sticks, chopped fruit, or portions of nuts for snacking will help keep you full between meals and at the most only require a few knife cuts (which I’m getting pretty good at from work). Basically, anything that would pair well with ranch or peanut butter would make an excellent snack option, and wouldn’t require cooking.

So for the month of April, I’m showing you guys how I’m tackling meal prep, and we can learn together! I’m in the process of recording and editing all my segments now, and by tomorrow (Tuesday) I’ll have published my first post. It’ll probably be in more of diary format so I can show not just my recipes, but also how I utilize my meals and snacks daily throughout the week. As such, I’m aiming for 20-25 minutes in video length, although that’s a rough estimate at this point.

I hope you enjoy taking this journey with me this April as we figure out how to make meal prep work in our own kitchens! If I find information about meal prepping that doesn’t fit my lifestyle, I’ll disclose those tips within my published content as another option that might work better for you. Please leave your thoughts in a comment below, or get in touch with me directly by filling out the form on the contact page.

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https://www.gofundme.com/Deglutenizer-Consultation

Jamie

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